Residents across St. Thomas and St. John lost power Thursday night after the Water and Power Authority reported a districtwide outage affecting all customers on both islands.
WAPA announced the blackout just after 4 p.m., blaming the failure on "loss generation at the Randolph Harley Power Plant." Plant personnel immediately began working to restore service, but nearly four hours later electricity remained off across the territory.
By 8:20 p.m., WAPA reported partial success, restoring power to feeders 5A, 7A, 9C, 12, and 13. However, the authority warned that additional generation challenges had emerged and were hampering broader restoration efforts.
In a 9:45 p.m. update, WAPA said plant personnel were "actively working to stabilize the system and restore service to affected customers," but the underlying cause of the initial power interruption had not yet been confirmed. The authority did not provide an estimated time for full restoration.
The extended outage left many residents unable to communicate, as the loss of grid power also knocked out internet service for those whose mobile devices had run out of battery. WAPA pledged to provide updates as more information became available.
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